It was raining on Saturday at Kaymoor. My buddy and I hiked back to Butcher's Branch and found a man trying to stay dry with his two young children. His wife and their two friends were trying to climb Low Voltage. We walked around to near Mo Betta Holds. Soon after they came over and the man who was climbing was thinking of doing the lower part of Mo Betta to stay out of the rain. The woman with him and the other woman seemed more interested in trying Rico Suave. The husband of the woman who died didn't want to climb in the rain and said he was taking the kids back to Roger's. We left at roughly the same time they hiked over to Rico.

The four adults all seemed very nice. The father was cute with the children. I am very saddened for the children and the father.

Heard this tragic news from my longtime climbing partner Eric Horst this morning.....I'm heartbroken to now read the details, my thoughts and condolences go out to Karen's family, friends and loved ones. :( It makes me incredibly sad to think it happened on a route I did the first ascent of. Not sure how one squares up with such a sobering reality, but The Rico Suave Arete - a route Doug Reed and I named in pure jest - will never quite seem the same.

Mike, thank you for taking the time to post the incredibly valuable info. Hopefully it was save others from the same, potentially life-ending, mistake.

Never girth hitch or tie knots with those skinny dynema/spectra slings. They can act like a wire saw and cut through themselfs or nylon.

Here is Something that I see folks do quite often that is super dangerous.

Leader gets to top of sport climb clips anchor and tells belayer that they are Off or clipped In even though the leader intends to Lower. They then tell the belayer to take and lower after they have rigged the lower. This sequence Beggs for disaster because the belayer feels like thay have been relieved from duty when they hear you yell Off or even clipped in. They then may become distracted with conversation, food, beverage, bug dope, etc. You mess something up and fall you now go splat or you lean back to lower and go splat.

If you intend to lower Never tell your belayer that you are off or even clipped in at the top. That is information that they do Not need to know and it is better that they do not know it. They should be keeping you on belay and not distracted by other needs just because they think you are safe. The only commands that they should get is . Slack! (while you rig the lower) take! (when you have finished riging the lower) and I am all yours, lower.

This may have nothing to do with the tragic accident at kaymoor but it feels like a good time to remind folks to be carefull of this sequence.

If you want to fix dedicated biners to slings use hockey tape and wrap it through the biner and then back around the sling and then through the biner again and back around the sling. Dedicated biner is now fixed on the sling in a way that it can not get in a funky possition.

I don't see how that is an improvement over fixing the biner with a Petzl String. Clipping a single strand using the fixed biner can still result in unclipping from the sling, leaving the biner attached to the sling only by the tape.

When I came across the blurb in the new NRG guidebook about how NRG has had many close calls but no fatalities yet......

Was talking with another longtime climbing partner - Bob Value - earlier today, who reminded me about a fatality a number of years ago at Bubba City. Well known Gunks climber Bill Ravitch was found dead at the base of one of the crags tangled up in his rope. Thoughts were that he had been either soloing or rappelling when the accident occurred. Trying to put a date on it, seems like it happened in the late 90s (?).

tradmanclimbs - that's great advise. If the leader is rigging to lower off there is no need at all for a signal from them until they are ready to lower. I watched it happen last time I was climbing in Vegas. Leader gets to the top, clips in and yells down to his belayer that he's off. Belayer confirms and takes him off and goes over to put on his shoes (or whatever). A minute later the leader yells down, "Ready to Lower" and comes within 3 seconds of decking.

Go to my blog (http://blog.trango.com/) where I posted method I use to rig a sport route that solves many problems. I'd love to hear what you think. Mal

tradmanclimbs - that's great advise. If the leader is rigging to lower off there is no need at all for a signal from them until they are ready to lower. I watched it happen last time I was climbing in Vegas. Leader gets to the top, clips in and yells down to his belayer that he's off. Belayer confirms and takes him off and goes over to put on his shoes (or whatever). A minute later the leader yells down, "Ready to Lower" and comes within 3 seconds of decking.

Go to my blog (http://blog.trango.com/) where I posted method I use to rig a sport route that solves many problems. I'd love to hear what you think. Mal

None of this has anything to do with the accident. Can we stay on point here?

jay. I did not see how my tape system could replicate by looking at the petzle sketch? I think I see what you mean but it would be very obvious.

I just tried your system using athletic tape, and I think it actually makes the danger of clipping a single strand even less obvious than when using a Petzl String. There is no way you can tell that the biner is only attached to the string by the tape.

I will play arround with it when I get home. I am not useing skinny runner. Big fat runner and I can see the outline of it through the tape. I would not recomed this if someone else rigged it but rigging it myself i know which way it goes. that may make it a bad system but it has worked well for me for many years. Again with the way I have it taped it would look super messed up if you clipped it back on to itself and then tried to anchor with it.

You couldn't have said it better for just meeting them. They were the type of Family that any climber would want to model themselves after. The climbed hard,smart,and put in the hours. But there dedication went beyond climbing and carried over into their family and local climbers who's lives Karen touched. She was the best mother and sewetest person,and never said anything bad about anybody. The climbing communtiy has lost a GREAT ONE and we will all miss her greatly. RIP Karen you will be missed.life is precious everyone so make sure the one's you love know it.

I am completely unable to figure out how to quote someone and then respond. I am an idiot....

Rick Thompson said: Was talking with another longtime climbing partner - Bob Value - earlier today, who reminded me about a fatality a number of years ago at Bubba City. Well known Gunks climber Bill Ravitch was found dead at the base of one of the crags tangled up in his rope. Thoughts were that he had been either soloing or rappelling when the accident occurred. Trying to put a date on it, seems like it happened in the late 90s (?).

I say: This is another horrific story entirely. Bill fell and died early on the morning of September 11, 2001. He was found at the base of the cliff with his haulbag still on his back. I believe (according to Roger) that the official report was that he slipped from the top of the cliff while hiking. Maybe trying to rig a rappel? It was a rough day for Roger. He remembers hearing the news of the terror attacks and watching the aftermath on TV only to be interrupted by the NPS to go identify Bill.

very tragic accident and one of the worse I have seen in years. I guess, best thing is to get all those rubber holder out and throw them in the garbage bin. Attach two separate dedicated attachment cord ( sling,daisy. purcell...whatever) with two locking biner and use those to clip in to anchors , test and put your weight on the master point before disconnecting the life line from the belay.

Here's a photo of Karen and a good friend Patty at the base of Old Rag, Va. getting ready to climb Strawberry Fields. These women are strong. these two are labor and delivery nurse's. some of the strongest women I know.

I'd like to thank Mike too. While I never used it getting into the anchors, I being a bit height limited, did keep one long open sling rigged with a "string" for setting up reachy clips. First thing I did on the way home tonight was stop at the gym and broke it in front of everyone using the technique described. It stays open from now on and a lot of jaws hit the floor when I did it.

This is my first time posting on here but I had to say something since this is something I can relate to.

Could it be possible that the problem happened even before she left the ground? I mentioned this accident to someone and said something about the slim chances of both biners accidently looping back thru. He promptly put on his harness, stuck a couple of petzel rubber grips on two slings with biners and girth hitched them to his harness. As he went to clip the biners to the back of his harness there was enough slack in the slings that the biners (quite easily) looped back thru the sling.

At that point a light bulb went off. Often, when I girth hitch my slings before I climb, I'll get halfway up the route and notice one (and a few times both) of my slings dragging down. It's always been a mystery to me how this happened (I obviously wasn't thinking hard enough about how it would happen). They would be "attached" when I started (or so I thought). I don't use the petzel band on my long slings so it's never been an issue, but it certainly would have been if I had.

This is my first time posting on here but I had to say something since this is something I can relate to.

Could it be possible that the problem happened even before she left the ground? I mentioned this accident to someone and said something about the slim chances of both biners accidently looping back thru. He promptly put on his harness, stuck a couple of petzel rubber grips on two slings with biners and girth hitched them to his harness. As he went to clip the biners to the back of his harness there was enough slack in the slings that the biners (quite easily) looped back thru the sling.

At that point a light bulb went off. Often, when I girth hitch my slings before I climb, I'll get halfway up the route and notice one (and a few times both) of my slings dragging down. It's always been a mystery to me how this happened (I obviously wasn't thinking hard enough about how it would happen). They would be "attached" when I started (or so I thought). I don't use the petzel band on my long slings so it's never been an issue, but it certainly would have been if I had.